


Though It's Not Love

by pipisafoat



Category: In Plain Sight
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-28
Updated: 2011-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:04:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipisafoat/pseuds/pipisafoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't love Raph, but that's what makes their relationship acceptable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Though It's Not Love

When Mary Shannon looked for a date, she looked for something that would last one night. Maybe two, if he turned out to be really good, but usually, it was just one night, not even a morning. If he looked virtuous, maybe there was dinner and then a night. To make him feel better about the woman who used him.

Then, one day, she decided that maybe just a date wasn't what she needed anymore. Yeah, he was that good, even if he did think too highly of himself, and with her mother getting more annoying than usual, she thought maybe it'd be useful to have both somewhere to escape and a guy to do all the heavy lifting her mother would probably end up requiring at some point. 'Some point' being when she finally got the hint and moved out. If it ever happened. Until then, she'd have a regular one night stand where she could sleep over without it being taken the wrong way.

Cue Raphael and his cliché, rippling, golden muscles and his all-over tan that, to be honest, she actually tried not to look at, because there are some places that just shouldn't be the exact same shade as the rest of your body. She figured that you didn't have to look at it if it was in you, and since that was the whole point of the two of them ever being in the same room (especially naked), it would work.

Unfortunately, Chico (and damn but she always called him that in her head now, thanks to Brandi) got high ideas about romance and chocolate cake and boyfriends (but never girlfriends; thank God he'd never used that word because she still appreciated his mouth when it wasn't talking) and weddings, and she thought maybe she'd have to dump him. Well, not dump him, because that's what you do with boyfriends, but stop having all these one nights with him. Then he had to go and get hurt, and fuck if she didn't just watch him turn into a bird with a broken wing, just like her mother and her sister and the occasional actual bird dumb enough to try to fly through her not-that-clean windows. She stuffed him on the couch, because her two spare rooms were full and the kitchen table was just for birds, and when she didn't want to deal with him, she got her sister to do it.

One broken-winged sister leading a broken-winged one night stand who, for once, knew better than to ask why he wasn't in her bedroom. It was a bit like the blind leading the blind, only then they both started to see each other as human beings, and it was all a little weird. She thought maybe she'd get dumped (because he thought he was her boyfriend, so if he did it, it would be a break-up) for her own sister, and for a while, she figured that would be a pretty good way for it to end. Let Brandi move in with Raph, and then she would be free to deal with her mother with nobody else complicating it. Not that Jinx needed anyone to complicate things. No, she was pretty good at it on her own, but Marshall was pretty good at unraveling things just before they strangled her, and the three of them had limped along just fine that way before Brandi and Raph, and the birds had never really seemed to mind.

But it didn't happen. Raph insisted he loved her and just appreciated Brandi's help, and she told him she still wasn't going to marry him. When he seemed to accept that, she figured the one nights could continue just fine. After all, she really didn't want to go find someone else for this arrangement just when she'd gotten him trained. Marshall was the only other guy who ever put up with her for long amounts of time, and... well, she had to work with him every morning. Made it a bit difficult to draw the line, even in her own head, and her head was pretty good at drawing big, black, bold lines around people.

Besides, she actually liked Marshall.

So time went on, and Raph somehow found his way into her bedroom one day, and he didn't leave that night. Or the next morning, but since he was still asleep when she left and was gone when she came back, she decided that was okay. He kept doing it, and each time, he'd push it just a little bit further. Just enough not to raise _all_ the red flags in her head, and by the time she realized he'd almost moved in, it was too late to do anything but tear Marshall's head off and try to transplant it with Stan's. All without painkillers and with them having no clue why.

Raph was good for her, she decided at some point, breaking off mid-tirade to stare at a note she found in the files she'd taken home the night before. _It's your mother's birthday this Thursday._ God knows she could use some help remembered that her family was more than just two loud, annoying bugs in her house, and since he seemed to actually _like_ them, maybe it could end up being beneficial. For a while. (She cleverly ignored the fact that it was Marshall who suggested exactly what to get for Jinx, Marshall who wrapped the present, and Marshall who, she found out weeks later, had told Raph when Jinx's birthday was in the first place.)

Raph was perfect for her. He liked her family, or at least tolerated them relatively well on a regular basis, he tolerated _Mary_ on a regular basis, and he was essentially unthinkingly devoted to her. He was good eyecandy if she needed to butter up another woman, and he was just possessive enough to scare off the most annoying jerks when she didn't feel like putting out the effort herself. He had money, too, which was always a bonus, especially since he seemed to love spending it on her whether she ever said thanks or not. He never seemed to mind that she wouldn't commit to (didn't want) anything long-term (or even specifically exclusive), and if she 'had to work late' sometimes and didn't tell him why she didn't come home, he never suspected that maybe she was sleeping on a friend's couch (the only friend she had, the only friend who never bugged her for more than she was willing to give) just to get away from him.

Most importantly, she was at no risk of falling in love with Raphael Ramirez.


End file.
